Like millions of others, I found Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan
novels (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and and
Those Who Stay, The Story of the Lost Child) to be fully absorbing and
addicting – I don’t say riveting, as many times I alternated between can’t put
it down and can’t keep reading. The four books comprise a single, long story of
the lifelong, deep and conflicted relationship between two girls, Elena (or
Lenù), the narrator, and Rafaella (Lila).
The girls grow up in a poor and violent neighborhood of Naples, from the
1950’s to 2014 – the pervasive violence
is not always due to the activities of the camorra, the “secret” crime
syndicate that was widespread in Campania, but is embedded in the families and neighborhoods,
and especially in the relationships between men and women.
I was angry. I said,
“You want to use me to con them?”
She understood that she had offended me. She squeezed my hand hard. “I didn’t intend
to say something unkind. I meant only
that you are good at making yourself liked.
The difference between you and me, always, has been that people are afraid
of me and not of you.”
“Maybe because you’re mean,” I said, even angrier.
“Maybe,” she said, and I saw that I had hurt her as she had
hurt me. Then, repenting, I added
immediately, to make up: “Antonio would get himself killed for you: he said to
thank you for giving his sister a job.”
“It’s Stefano who gave the job to Ada,” she replied. “I’m
mean.”
The relationship between Lenù and Lila is synergistic – on
her own, Lenù is book-smart, but a striver, who says she is only fully alive
and most creative when working with, or stimulated by Lila. In contrast, Lila is strong, exceptionally creative
and fiercely independent, but seems to seek and need the validation of her
accomplished friend. And their lives and
friendship are framed in the books within the larger currents of Italian
political and social life, which are fully and grippingly explored. Still, there are key events in the books whose
meaning and significance I cannot quite grasp but which remain in my mind long
after closing the books. Fascinating
books!
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